Playthings
by The Magic Pocket Turtle
Summary: After the Christmas Incident, Halloween Town have recollected their dangerous creations. However, some are still missing. When Jack and Sally go to find them, they discover that the toys were sold to a man who creates Horror movies. And he wants Jack too.
1. In Which Someone is Shot Down

There. That's it. I have nothing left to rewrite, replot, or anything else. I'll get to work on that final chapter now. This was written to RENT: The Original Broadway Recording, Disc 2. Yeah, that's all I've to say.

Disclaimer: What gives you the idea I owned NMBC anyway? In this chapter, I own Ele, and that's pretty much it.

* * *

Christmas eve.

The world, snuggled in its own versions of holiday cheer, was quiet. For the most part, they were all asleep. However, a select few were awake. Some of them read. Some of them stared forlornly into the white outdoors, while memories of Christmases and Lovers Past danced in the darkness. Most of them were watching TV.

Amidst the assorted Christmas specials, infomercials and glaring straight lines, those who were awake were beginning to nod off. Then, suddenly-

"Around the world there have been reports of an imposter shamelessly impersonating Santa Clause, mocking and mangling this joyous holiday."

The female voice of a reporter cut into the thick Noël silence. Men and women were jolted from their half-sleep and whole dreams to stare blankly at the silver screen. The unbelievable story, in the light of confusion, seemed completely true. Stumbling to their feet, those awake grasped at phones and thumbed in the numbers of friends and family, to warn them, convince them, protect them the only way they could.

The news spread. No sooner had one family been alerted then they themselves began to warn others. Households began to bar their windows and alight carnivorous flames in their fireplaces. No evil Saint Nick would enter their home to terrorize their families, no siree.

Of course, not everyone was in their home this eve. Some wandered the streets alone, or in pairs, unable, or simply unwilling to return home just yet. None of them knew about the skinny man wreaking havoc around the world.

One of the people on the street was known as Eleanor Sprague, known less formally as Ele. Her reasons for being on the road were her own, and she was not known for sharing. She walked in silence down the sidewalk, thinking muddled thoughts and aimlessly counting the flickers of the streetlamps.

An explosion ripped the Christmas quiet.

Ele jumped. Her head snapped upwards, scanning the dark sky above. Her brown hair whipped behind her in the brief and soft wind. Another shot fired, lighting the sky. Ele could now see the target. A tiny little thing in the sky was now rocking back and forth, desperately out of control. Another shot fired, and the craft began to plummet. Ele wasn't sure, but she could have sworn that she heard a small voice cry out "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night…"

And then…

Silence.


	2. In Which We Veiw a Skeleton Dance

Author's Note: Oh yeah, rewrite time! Anyway, I've decided to condense chapters 2-5 down to (hopefully) only two chapters. (After all, five chapters is a tad to long to take to get to the point, no?) And (drum roll please) this time, everything gets to be SPELLCHECKED!! (da da…) Yes, my slippery little foe, SPELLING ERRORS and MISTYPES SHALL BE ELIMINATED!!! MWAHAHAHAAA!

cough

Disclaimer doodaa: I do NOT own the policemen, the graveyard, Jack, Zero, the angel mausoleum, Santa's hat, the doll, the scooter or the hobbyhorse. I DO own Ele, the bear, the cards, and a package of pure, unadulterated SUGAR. (Where'd you think I got my inspiration?)

* * *

"The imposter has been shot down, but there's still no sign of Santa. It looks like we'll have to cancel Christmas. I repeat; the imposter has been shot down..." 

The police car slowly drove past Ele, who followed it with her eyes until it ducked out of sight. When the sleigh had fallen, she had been the first to find the crash. She wondered briefly why the cop hadn't noticed the sooty, burning wreckage himself, but pushed the thought away and turned her sights toward the fallen sleigh.

Toys, or at least, those that had not been horribly burned in the crash, were scattered among the tombs. The sleigh was still burning, and scattered flames dipped and flared around the dead's final resting places before guttering out in the snow. The smell of smoke and wet charcoal wafted into Ele's nose, causing her to sneeze. The centerpiece of the cemetery was a great statue of an angel, her face upturned over an open book.

Sprawled on the book was a thin, skeletal form.

There was a soft growl near Ele's feet. She glanced down to see, of all things, what appeared to be a floating tissue with a dog's head balanced upon it. At the end of it's nose was a bulbous, glowing pumpkin. Ele stared dumbly at it, and it growled again. She finally noticed what the dig wanted. Slowly, she crouched down and, shuddering, picked up what appeared to be a jawbone. She held it out to the ethereal mutt, who took it gently and backed away.

When it was safely out of reach, it turned it's back on her and floated over to the skeletal figure, who, upon closer look was not merely skeletal, but in fact _was_ a skeleton.

The dog carefully lay the jawbone in its proper place on the skeleton's skull. One bony arm, swathed in tattered red sleeves lifted itself and a single, twig-like finger deftly pressed the bone back into place. Then, the most bizarre of things began to happen.

The skeleton began to sing.

The tune was slow, haunting, beautiful. It was a lament of sorts, his rich deep voice rising in the words as he sang. Ele stood rooted at the gate, unable to move from her place as she witnessed the solitary performance.

_"… In a million years they'll find me_

_Only dust_

_And a plaque_

_That reads 'Hear Lies Poor Old Jack_."

The skeleton flopped back over the book. _Oh sweet Jesus_. Ele thought. _He's a Drama King_.

The song continued, and Ele watched as the formerly somber and grievous skeleton suddenly became animated, excited. The song became quick, jaunty, almost merry. Suddenly, the form gasped, and whirled around. "_I hope there's still time to set things right_." It muttered, still in the singsong voice he had been using. He plucked a red hat from the ghostly dog's mouth, and then, muttering about a "Sandy Claws", threw open the mausoleum and descended into darkness.

Ele still stood at the door, dumbfounded. Quickly she glanced around, searching for the cop who had passed before the song began. With equal speed she opened the door, which clanged against the chain that held it only a foot apart. Ele squirmed halfway through the skinny passage, got stuck, then squirmed the rest of the way through.

She carefully approached the crypt, the doors still wide open as the icy wind cleared the stale air from the stone room. Peering into the darkness, she felt her skin prickle at the sight of the cold, dead chamber.

A piercing scream split the air. Ele spun, searching wildly for the source, her heart making a giant leap from her chest to her ears and pounding an angry tattoo.

A doll was crawling through the snow. Her mouth, a mere slash on her face, stretched into a hideous shriek that grated the nerve and caused one's hair to stand smartly to attention. Scraggly hair shot out at sharp and terrible angles, framing the face of a voodoo doll that had slithered it's way from the pages of Edgar Allen Poe. Soot smothered its dress and face, accenting the menace of the approaching plaything. Ele backed slowly to the left.

Something nudged her foot.

Screaming bloody murder, Ele simultaneously leapt to the right, glanced down and landed squarely on her side. The air fled her lungs, and as she struggled to breathe, she saw the stuffed head of a horse, smeared with soot, raise itself, shake it's scraggly mane and advance. Gasping, Ele scuttled away from it.

Sharp teeth sank into her arm. Ele screamed again, this time more in pain then fear. She waved her arm wildly, shrieking at the top of her lungs. A stuffed bear with a single, yellow, bloodshot eye grinned around her arm, and bit harder.

A thin blade flew past her cheek, slicing a thin red line into her skin. Another flew by her arm, slashing her jacket. More began to blur around her, fifty-four thin, bladed cards, all intent on their screeching target.

Ele spun and began to slam the bear against the mausoleum, still screaming. With an angry growl the bear released it's grip and fell to the ground.

Breathing in quick, sharp breaths, Ele screamed again, praying that someone, anyone, would hear her. She gripped her bleeding arm, and ran toward the gate. Suddenly the ground was much closer to her face as she tripped over a scooter and sprawled on the ground, her head mere inches from a chipped and ancient tombstone.

She rolled over to see the cards flow in a graceful arc through the air, then come zinging down upon her. She rolled out of the way as the cards slammed into the ground where she used to be. She leapt up, stumbling blindly off balance until she slammed into a tombstone. Out of seemingly nowhere, the doll reappeared and latched onto Ele's ankle, gazing up at the terrified girl as it continued to shriek it's horrible dirge.

By now the scooter had righted itself, and stood by the hobbyhorse in utter defiance. It's black flag with the crossed bones fluttered angrily in the slight wind. Finding words at last, Ele screamed "LEAVE ME ALONE!!! GO AWAY!!!"

The toys all paused, and even the doll stopped her shrieking. Grasping the opportunity at hand, Ele ripped the doll off her ankle and threw it into the gaping doors of the mausoleum. It collided with the cycloptic bear, knocking the both of them into the darkness below. Ele ran to the doors, intent on closing them. The scooter and the hobbyhorse apparently found their will again, and shot toward her in a race Ele feared the finish of. She dodged hastily to the side, and borne by their own momentum, both toys shot through the doors to join their fellows.

Ele rushed to close the doors, both heavier than the skeleton had made them appear. The final thud resounded quietly in the graves, and Ele sank to her knees, shivering in a mixture of fear, ecstasy and cold. She glanced behind her, staring at the cards still imbedded in the ground. They were motionless, glimmering in the faint neon lights of the city.

Ele leapt to her feet, and with all the speed adrenaline could give her, slipped through the gates and raced down the road, leaving the cards to shimmer alone in the night.


	3. In Which We Learn of the Toys

Author's Note: All righty, here we are. Everything's all spiffed up and ready to go. Yeah,

This one's a leetle bit lengthy, but at least now we get to the real action one or two chapters sooner, right? And that was the point of this excercise, yes? Good. Glad we got that straight.

All right, here's something for y'all to do: find the blantent GREMLINS referance!

Disclaimer: I still don't own Jack, Sally, Halloweentown, Lock, Shock, Barrel, the doll, the hobbyhorse, the scooter (Well, I do sorta-kinda, but that's because somewhere, somehow I morphed the bicycle in the graveyard into the scooter.) or the graveyard. I DO own Ele, Andy, the Cyclops Bear and the cards.

* * *

Ele had been halfway home before she realized she'd lost her keys. Knowing her parents would never approve of her being out so late at night, she chose the other way she and her brother always got in and out of the apartment.

She climbed up onto a dumpster, stupidly yet also conveniently placed beneath the fire escape. With the ease of a practiced burglar, she leapt up to the ladder and grasped the first handle. She hung, suspended for only a few moments, before the ladder came, creaking and protesting, down. She clambered up the metal steps as quietly as she could, pulled the ladder up, and continued up to her floor.

The window, of course, was unlocked. Living a solid four stories up, and having nothing really worth stealing, only her mother saw any reason to lock it, which also meant that it never was.

With as much stealth as she could muster, Ele slipped through the window into the dark living room.

"If you stay up late, Santa won't come." A voice said in the dark.

Ele glanced around. Suddenly, the room lit up. Blinking in the sudden light, Ele could make out the form of Andrew, her younger brother, sitting before a slightly darkened, muted television.

His hair was a mussed black, slightly long for his gender, but not enough to be considered girly. His eyes were blue, but one hardly saw them in the complete paleness of his skin. He wore black. Lots of it. The only colors he had other than that was the thick red lettering on his T-shirt, which spelled out "I WISH YOU WERE A PINIATA", and the rather distorted green dog holding a stick above it.

"Santa's dead." She shot back, closing the window behind her. I saw him crash in the graveyard."

"Zat wasn't Santa, leetle girl." He replied in a mocking French accent. "Zat was en eempostair."

With a dramatic flair of his hands Andy produced the television remote, and turned up the muted volume.

"Good news, folks!" the reporter chirped, her head cut out of the scene as the cameraman (whom Ele thought should be fired) kept the lens focused squarely on her bust. "Santa's back, righting wrongs and bringing joy to children everywhere!"

Ele feigned indifference, but watched with fascination. She hadn't believed in Santa ever since one of her school friend's father got stuck in the chimney and died one Christmas Eve. He had been dressed in a red Santa suit with a pillow stuffed in it. It had been the pillow that did him in. No one knew why he hadn't yelled for help, but what was done was done. That had been in third grade. Ele spent the rest of her childhood Christmases asking Salvation Army Santas awkward questions and stealing their beards when they couldn't answer.

But here it was. A fallen sleigh, a supposed Santa running around and righting wrongs. For a moment, there was doubt. Then she shook it aside. _It's all an elaborate Christmas scheme, that's all_. She switched off the television and turned to her brother, who, at least since last month, was a solid fifteen, and had never believed in Santa to begin with. "Go to bed."

* * *

"Here's the last of it."

Santa heaved a bulging sack of toys over the edge of the sleigh. It landed on the cobblestone streets of Halloweentown with several shrieks, cries and screams of protest. The Jolly Old Elf grimaced and shuddered in disgust. He had spent the last two days double-checking people's homes for forgotten toys, a dangerous task for anyone, especially since, after Christmas, some people had a tendency to light those fires in their fireplaces during the night. Coupled with the near homicidal tendencies of the objects in question, the whole ordeal had been a slow, painful process in more ways than one.

"Thank you Sandy." Jack replied gratefully, lifting, dropping, then heaving the squirming bag onto his back with a pained look on his skull. "I don't see how you manage not to break your back every year!"

"Practice, I suppose. That, and the muscle of course."

"Muscle?"

"My arms aren't just big with fat you know."

"Ah, I see." Jack grinned, then winced as he was kicked-or maybe punched- in the back by one of the toys.

"Of course, my loads don't usually attack me either."

"I AM sorry about that, truly I am."

"I know Jack, I know." Saint Nicholas settled back into his padded seat and grasped the reigns. "I must get back now. It seems whenever I go elsewhere something goes wrong at the factory."

"I know what you mean." Jack smiled, thinking of the mayor.

"Of course. Happy New Year."

"New Year?"

"Never mind." The Fat Man snapped the reigns, and his reindeer started, then pulled the sleigh up the rickety ramp and into the sky, leaving Jack to ponder the mysterious New Year as he trudged back to his home.

Of course, he had known that every year was a New Year, but he hadn't known that there was a greeting for it, and if there was a greeting for the New Year, then there most certainly must be a holiday for it! He mulled over these thoughts, daydreaming and thinking and planning, until he finally made it to his home.

The door was open, and dust was being forcefully banished through it. It burst out in thin little clouds, hovering there as though waiting for a sign, before being blasted to pieces by the wind. Jack quickly slipped through the blinding dust, finding himself in the dark, haunting entryway of his home. Sally was there, sweeping away at the layers of dust that had quietly invaded and settled in Jack's home.

"Sally, you don't have to do that." Jack protested, attempting to take the broom from her and dropping the toys in the process. Heralded by a deluge of angry yowls and screams, Jack reflexively muttered "Sorry, sorry."

Sally giggled, and held the broom away from the Pumpkin King. "Jack it's fine, I don't mind. You haven't had much time to clean after all."

"I'll find time, you don't have to-"

"I want to Jack." The rag doll said quietly. There was a brief silence in which the two gazed at each other.

Sally had been living with Jack since Christmas. Since Dr. Finklestein now had "his precious Jewel" to care for him, he had let his creation go with his blessings. "Don't be afraid of coming back if the whole thing doesn't work out." He had told her at the time. He had chuckled slightly then, as though knowing such a thing simply wouldn't happen, and the offer was merely a formality.

Jack sighed. He had been against her cleaning his home from the beginning, but he supposed some things simply couldn't be helped.

"Is that the last of them?" Sally asked, deftly changing the subject as she gestured at the squirming bag of toys.

"I hope so. They were the last Sandy could find at any rate. Say, you wouldn't happen to know about a "New Years" holiday, would you?"

"Jack…" she warned.

"I know I know, I was just curious." He sighed and lifted the bag again. Terminating the conversation, Jack made his way to the library. It was best if he double-checked the toys, just to be sure.

* * *

Ele rubbed her arm and glared at the television screen. Andy had once again laid hold of the remote, and she was now forced to watching at least an hour of news before she finally got it back. "I like to know what's happening in the world." He had said, shrugging. "It's a lot bigger then just the city you know."

I like my little world in the city, thanks. She thought to herself. Sure, she could go elsewhere, but that would only mean that Andy had the television longer, or worse, her father would get the remote while she was in the other room, and the only show he ever cared to watch was the "Antique Rodeo Show", and she'd be damned if she was going to sit through that.

She looked sullenly at her arm. She had lied (as she often did) to her parents about the origin of the bites in her arm. She hadn't intended on telling them, but when they found her bandaging it in the bathroom, she had to come up with a lie fast. It was simple enough- she had been bitten by a stray dog the night before when she went outside to get some fresh air. She had gone down to investigate a noise, and was attacked. The lie had resulted in a lecture from her father, and an immediate rabies shot.

Her parents were in the kitchen now.

"We can't afford this-"

"I know, I know."

"It's outrageous! They shouldn't charge people for medicine!"

"The doctors have to make a living too-"

"It doesn't matter!"

Ele leaned her head against the back of the couch and squeezed her eyes shut. She hated more then anything to cost her parents money. Always afraid of debt, she had known for a long time that her parent's financial means weren't always sound.

News poured from the box into her ears. "Can't we watch something interesting?" she moaned.

"You don't have to watch this with me."

Ele growled. The news reporter's head was still shaved off from the top of the screen. Ele had a solid suspicion that her brother wasn't interested in the news at all. The reporter shuffled her papers, and probably flashed a smile that the whole world missed. "The phenomenon now known widely as "The Christmas Incident" has sparked a great deal of controversy, as well as awe. Internet sites have spread regarding it, in an almost cult like fashion."

The scene switched as a kid, roughly sixteen in age, began to speak, answering a question the watchers were not privy to. "The Christmas Incident is probably the most amazing thing that's happened. It's like being in a movie." The scene switched back to the reporter.

"A series of paranormal investigators have taken the sleigh in for investigation. However, some people have more interest in the products of the Imposter Santa, most notably, Aelphious Dirge, Horror movie millionaire and fanatic, has offered a substantial reward to anyone willing to sell him the toys. More on that later.

"In other news, a fight broke out in the streets in front of Pablo's Pub, a rumored 'gay bar', when one Matthew Harem and-"

The television switched off.

"I was watching that!" Andrew cried indignantly.

Their father stood before them. "We need to talk."

Ele listened halfheartedly to the new family budget. The other half was focused on the toys in the crypt, which were hopefully, likely, still there, waiting for someone to claim them.

* * *

Jack leaned heavily on a book, pinning down a struggling doll.

Around him, multiple playthings were tied, pinned, or weighted down by various objects in the library. The Pumpkin King scanned his list, double-checking it in the manner he had learned from Santa. Under his breath he whispered the names of the toys that had been recently recaptured, and compared them to the massive list of toys from before Christmas.

"Duck, check… bear- vampire, check… Cat-in-the-box 1, 2 and 3,check, check, check… Pumpkin-in-the-box A, B, and C, check, check, check…" his forehead furrowed, and he circled a toy on the list. "Scooter, no check."

He lay the list down and plucked a fresh piece of paper from the pile on his desk. He quickly inscribed the toys circled on the paper to this sheet. "Bear- Cyclops, scooter, hobbyhorse, cards, and doll." He stared glumly at the list.

He glanced around the room, searching for any of the toys listed. Sighing, he stretched his back, half-listening to his stiff spine pop and crack in response.

"Ja-aaaaaack," a singsong voice called up to him. "Diiiin-errrrrrrrrrrrr."

Jack groaned. Apparently, Lock Shock and Barrel were joining them for dinner. Again. The unmistakable voice of Shock was all the proof he needed.

The trio had shown up after Christmas demanding to know what had happened to Oogie Boogie. Guiltily, Jack had explained to them exactly what had happened. This had had a mixed effect on Halloween's Finest Trick-or-Treaters. At first, Jack had thought that the three were going to attack him and attempt to tear him apart. Then, he thought they were going to cry. Following that, Jack would have bet his figurative crown that the three were going to break into song and start dancing.

Of course, none of these happened. In fact, what had happened completely stunned Jack.

"So," Shock said slowly.

"Aren't you going-"

"To invite us in?" Lock finished.

And Jack had. The three didn't even begin with breaking something. Quite simply, they had asked what was for dinner. And now they were here, again, ready for a meal, as they had been for the past few days.

Jack entered he the kitchen. "What are we having?" he asked.

Something warm and slightly damp splatted against his face. "Whaddaya think, Jack?" Lock sneered.

Jack sighed and peeled the bat-which is what it was- from his face. Sally stifled a giggle as she placed platefuls of food before the empty seats deigned for her and Mr. Unlucky.

What was on the plates was a perfectly normal meal. The wing that had hit Jack's face had been broiled, and was one of two that had been on Lock's plate. Beside the stacked wings was an appetizing stir-fry of rats' tails mixed with various poisonous herbs and small, chewy strips of meat.

Jack pulled out a chair and gestured for Sally to sit. H then took his own place and sampled some of the stir-fry. "Really, Sally, you outdo yourself."

Sally blushed. "Oh Jack, it's not really anything spec-"

She was interrupted by a series of gagging and Barrel falling onto the floor. "Hush." Jack ordered.

The five ate in relative silence, the kind occasionally broken up by one of the children hurling a fork at the other and the bouts of violent revenge that followed. It wasn't long before Lock posed the question.

"Can we see the toys?"

"No." Jack decided not to elaborate further, knowing from experience that any attempt to do so would only agitate the three further.

"We promise not to touch them." Shock attempted to feign innocence.

"I highly doubt that." The Pumpkin King replied.

"Fine!" Barrel yelled, and the three stood. Jack braced himself. "We'll just take them!"

Lock, Shock and Barrel made a dash for the stairs. Jack was already on their heels. "Stop!" he yelled, more a reflex then belief that they would actually obey.

Indeed, the three giggled madly as they continued up. As they reached the door, they were stopped momentarily by a large, ostentatious padlock. Lock laughed. "Is that the best you got, Jack?"

Jack grinned. "Nope." He was holding a squirming Shock in one lengthy arm and a Barrel who was attempting to bite into the other one.

"Hey!" Lock yelled angrily. "Put them down!"

Jack took this moment to snatch up Lock as well, dragged all of them downstairs and tossed them all out onto the rickety steps. The three stood up, dusted themselves off, and waved. "See you tomorrow Jack!" they laughed.

Jack groaned and closed the door. "Those brats are going to drive me nuts."

"You could find someone else to care for them." Sally suggested.

"No, no… I'll be fine." Jack slouched his way upstairs. Upon reaching the locked door, he detached his little finger and shoved it in the hole. There was a click, and the lock popped open. He entered the room, and began to check the list one more time, just in case.

He knew, but didn't really accept, that the toys weren't there. He knew he would have to find them himself. Sandy Claws had done enough for him, and he couldn't possibly bother him again.

He tried to remember. The unaccounted for toys seemed abnormally familier. He had dropped them. No, they had fallen with him. Fallen? Yes, snow… soot… fire… graveyard! That's where they were!

_At least,_ he thought, _no mortal in their right mind would take them willingly._

* * *

The rising sun found Ele at the graveyard. She clutched a potato sack in one hand, and a fire poker in the other. The sack was slightly bulging with the various containers that Ele had shoved in there. Holding the poker with her armpit, she slowly removed a "humane mousetrap", which her mother insisted on. It was the kind that was basically a small cage, and made it so her father didn't have to deal with all sorts of little dead mouse bodies.

The sleigh was gone, taken by the FBI no doubt, but the soot remained. More importantly, the cards, blissfully unnoticed by whatever power had taken the sled, still lay stuck in the ground, but dusted with new snow. Not enough snow to bury them completely, but enough to make them unrecognizable unless you knew where to look.

Ele wasted no time in poking the cards into the mousetrap. They sat docilely, and Ele was inclined to believe that was all they were. She closed the trap and carefully set it down in the snow. She then removed a birdcage from the sack and balanced it carefully on a tombstone.

Folding the sack over another tomb, Ele took the poker back in hand and turned to face the mausoleum. The angel still stood, gazing at the heavens above. The doors below it were still closed, and didn't appear to be disturbed.

Ele considered running. After all, the cards were all she needed to pay off the medical bill. Still…

She was in front of the mausoleum, and her hands were on the door. She was opening it, slowly, slowly, so very slowly.

The great black of the crypt grinned at her.

But that was all. None of the toys were there, ready to tear out her throat for locking them up. She stepped cautiously into the dark.

Her foot landed on something that squished. She was immediately thrown off-balance by the wild thrashings of the stuffed bear. Giving a shriek of fright, Ele swung with the poker, thwacking bear across the eye. The toy screamed in pain and clawed at its face in a vain attempt to blot out it's suffering. Ele took this opportunity to snatch it up by the scruff of its neck at toss it into the birdcage. She took a lock from her pocket and slammed it firmly down between the bars, locking it shut. The bear scrabbled at the hinges, then began to whine pitifully in the growing sunlight.

Something clattered behind her.

The scooter lay basking in the dawnlight. Ele lifted the sack and tentatively approached the toy.

The hobby horse struck. In noble defence of it's comerade, it rode out of the darkness, the doll riding it. It slammed into Ele, knocking her over. She scrambled to her feet, tripping over the scooter, which was attempting to right itself. She threw the sack over it, dropping the poker with a clatter.

The horse stood, as though bewildered. Ele took this moment to grab the stick forcefully and shove it into the sack. She bound it shut, then dropped it on the ground.

That left the doll. Having fallen off the horse, it now stood screaming behind a tombstone, outraged. Ele considered leaving it, now that she had her prizes. In the end, Ele removed her hat, a knit thing without a brim that her mother had said made her look like an Easter egg. She jammed the hat over the doll and held it closed with her fist. The doll struggled briefly, then subsided.

Ele breathed a sigh of relief, then gazed about herself. The toys' prisons weren't exactly scattered, there wasn't enough of them for that. But there were enough to make it difficult for her to carry them. Sighing, she shifted the hat to her other hand and slipped the loop above the birdcage around her wrist. She then shoved the sack under the same arm, picked up the mousetrap, and, feeling vaguely like a grave robber, triumphantly made her way home.


	4. In Which Ele Meets Jack and Sally

There! I did it! I FIANALLY finished this chapter! It's… long. Four pages actually. I managed to make an outline for this story, so I no longer really have any excuses for not updating. I guess that means you're free to throw rocks at me… Also, I intend to condense the chapters before this AFTER I finish the story. Five chapters is too long an introduction. I hope you enjoy this chapter, I'm proud of it.

* * *

Jack looked about him despairingly. The cemetery where he was forcibly knocked to his senses that night weeks ago still bore the sooty scorched marks of his arrival. The twisted sleigh he had driven had been carted off to some junkyard, or perhaps for scientific study. That was the first sign to Jack that something was wrong. He was certain that the toys would have frightened away anyone who would have dared enter the graveyard.

If they were still there, that was.

Sally inspected the burned marks on the walls and tombstones. "It's a wonder you survived, Jack!"

Jack smiled. "Yes, well, I am already dead."

Sally smiled back. "Yes, I suppose so."

Jack swept the yard of the dead one more time with his eye sockets. "Well, they're definitely not here." He said, blowing air through his nostrils in annoyance. The air whistled as it passed through.

"Are we going to look for them?" Sally asked, already knowing the answer.

"We have to." Jack replied. "Those toys shouldn't stay in this world."

Sally wondered briefly what Jack planned to do about the presents when he intended for the children to keep them. She chose not to bring up the subject.

"Where are you going?"

Jack looked behind him. "I'm going to find them." He said firmly. "Perhaps you should head back."

"I'm not leaving you!" Sally cried, walking quickly toward her beloved.

Jack smiled again. "I thought you might say that."

The two left the graveyard, and the dead entered the world of the living.

* * *

Ele did not meet Aelphious Dirge personally. Not entirely sure what to do after capturing the toys, she had locked them in her bedroom closet. She then went immediately to the nearest library and began searching the Internet for Aelphious Dirge. She E-mailed him regarding the toys, and was sent back a two-word response.

Proove it.

So Ele immediately packed off the Cycloptic Bear, and a letter stating that she had other playthings, in a first-class parcel destined, for the Dirge residence. She received notice that the promised money had been deposited in the requested account, and a request for the others. Ele immediately sent them away, and received the same notice that the money had been deposited.

Ele saw a load lift off her parents, but she saw a puzzlement take its place. They were not ones to accept charity, and Ele had not let them in on her scheme. As it was, they were anonymous deposits, and soon they seemed to have stopped worrying about it.

This was all three days before Jack and Sally arrived in her world.

The first mistake Jack and Sally made was to walk the streets in the open.

As it was not Halloween, they received many odd looks. A few people ran off screaming, which caused Jack to puff (or come as close to puffing as a skeleton could) with pride, instead of him realizing that this would not be helpful at all.

"Jack? Jack, I think we should get off the sidewalk." Sally said nervously.

"Nonsense! We can't go gallivanting in the road, can we?"

"It's not that, Jack. It's not Halloween, it's not right for us to be out here in the open. We should wait until night or something."

Jack sighed and looked around him, until he realized that there was a ten-foot radius of empty space around him and Sally. The people ahead of him looked back nervously, then shuffled ahead quickly. People behind him dragged their feet, annoying those behind them who couldn't see what they were wary of.

"Perhaps you are right…" Jack replied, and quickly slipped into an alleyway.

The alley was dingy. Although a perfectly good dumpster stood with it's back pressed to the wall, trash was strewed across the ground. Near illegible graffiti were scribbled on the walls.

It was also a dead end.

Click.

The sound was nearly inaudible, but Jack heard it. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That click!"

"What click?"

"It came from back here!" Jack strode toward the dumpster, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Peering behind the dumpster, Jack found a boy, crouching over something.

He was about fifteen, with bowl cut black hair. His back was turned to Jack, so the Pumpkin King could not see his face. However, the boy was wearing a gray hoodie with the words "…but my aim is improving" and black jeans that overlapped his shoes.

"Sally! Come over here!" Jack whispered excitedly.

"I can hear you, you know." The boy said.

Jack blinked. "Oh. Right."

The boy stood and turned. He had a blank face, and looked at the skeleton and the rag doll through questioning brown eyes. He had a rather feminine nose, if you can imagine one, and long, thin lips. A single brown dot rested beneath his left eye. The front of his hoodie said "I missed you…". He held a lighter in one hand.

The two stared at each other for a few seconds while Sally shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what to do. Finally the boy spoke. "I recognize you."

"You do?" Jack said, surprised.

"Yeah. Weren't you the guy pretending to be Santa awhile back? I think I recognize you from that picture in the newspaper. It was pretty blurry and all, but hey, it's not like there are a lot of tall, skinny skeletons frolicking around town now, is there?"

"No, I suppose not… what do you mean "newspaper"?"

"I mean the Coffee News."

Jack responded with a blank look. "You mean the mayor doesn't just ride around and announce everything?"

The boy laughed. "Hell no! If he did he'd probably be tossed in the nuthouse!"

"Oh."

Sally nudged Jack. "What?" he whispered.

"The toys!"

"Oh! Right. Um… Mister?"

"Andrew."

"Mister Andrew…"

"Just Andrew's fine."

"Alright, Andrew. Yes, I was attempting to run Christmas that one time, but it was kind of an accident. Anyway, I'm looking for some of the toys I was giving out. They're a little more dangerous than I intended and-"

"Toys?" The boy broke into a grin. "Yeah, I know about those! My sister has them."

Jack smiled. "Truly? Wonderful? Do you think she'd give them back to us?"

"Probably. I know she doesn't like them. She had this real look on her face when she brought them home. She swore me into silence, but since you're the skeleton Santa-"

"Jack. I'm Jack, the Pumpkin King. And this is Sally."

"Right, whatever. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to give them back."

Andrew turned toward the dumpster. Jack again glimpsed the words "I missed you…" before they were replaced with "… but my aim is improving." A proverbial light bulb went off in Jack's head. "Oh!" he exclaimed, laughing at the joke.

Andrew looked back at him, with an expression all but shouting "What the hell?"

Jack's laughing died down, and an embarrassed look spread across his face. "Oh. I just… your shirt…"

"Right." Andrew nodded, understanding, then turned back to the dumpster. He clambered up onto the dumpster and started up the ladder. "Follow me."

"May I ask one more question?" Jack requested, as he easily climbed up onto the dumpster and began assisting Sally.

"Shoot." Andrew replied.

"Shoot?" Jack asked, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Go ahead."

"Oh. Well, what was the clicking noise?"

"Huh? Oh." Andrew turned and raised the lighter before Jack's face. He snapped his finger down the igniter wheel and pressed down on the button. A small flame darted up, casting light into Jack's eye sockets and illuminating the insides of his skull. "One of my friends told me if you keep spinning this wheely-thing here the flame grows higher. I was testing it out here because if I tried it our inside, Ele would kill me."

"Ele?"

"My sister. You'll like her, she's pretty nice."

Andrew led Jack and Sally up the ladders to his window.

* * *

Just having the toys out of the house were not enough. Ele had become extremely tense in the few days she had them, and it had carried on after they had been sold. Thus, her brother climbing through the window with the Master of Fright directly behind him was not the cure for her nerves.

With a shriek that would put a banshee to shame Ele rolled off the couch and grabbed the nearest thing on hand- a baseball bat she had placed beneath the sofa. "ANDREW! BEHIND YOU!" She screamed, swinging her weapon like a neanderthalic warrior.

"Wait-" Andrew was thrust aside in his explanation, and moments later the wooden bat collided with Jack's skull.

The oddly round orb that had once been Jack's head popped off and sailed across the room. The sightless body stumbled forward, and Sally, who was by then standing at the window, screamed. Jack's body continued to wander helplessly about the room, yet still retaining a fearsome quality to it. That, coupled with Sally's high-pitched scream pounding in her head caused Ele to do the one thing she could force through her brain; she swung again.

This one connected with Jack's abdomen, forcing him backward where he landed painfully on his tailbone. Ele would have continued to pummel Halloween's hero if Sally hadn't leapt at her. With a lover's rage she pushed Ele down, and the bat rolled out of reach. "LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Sally screeched.

Ele struggled with the rag doll, while Andrew searched for Jack's head. Finally he found it, and quickly passed it on to Jack, who jammed it on his neck and took stock of the situation. Stumbling to his feet the Pumpkin King, aided by Andrew, pulled the women apart. Ele had red marks on her arms where Sally had gripped her, and both sets of stitches connecting her arms to her shoulders were loosened.

Both girls glared at each other, breathing heavily, while Jack and Andrew stood awkwardly behind them.

"Ele, I'd like you to meet Jack, and his girlfriend, Sally."


	5. In Which We Learn a Little More

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Jack. I do not own Sally. I do not own Halloweentown. I do not own the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Amazon or Mt Everest. Aelphious Dirge and Ele are mine. So is Andrew.

* * *

Fortunately, Jack suffered only minor cracks in his skull. After Sally had tightened her stitching and Andrew convinced his sister their guests weren't going to eat them, the four entered the kitchen and sat in silence around the table.

The shock of the first meeting had yet to wear off, and the air was tense enough to cut into blocks and build a house with. Finally, Jack brought out the point. "We need the toys back."

"What?" Ele shook her head to dismiss the thoughts floating in her mind and brought herself to the meeting at hand.

"There were toys, I'm afraid they got left behind. I was told by your brother that you might have them."

Ele shot a glare at her brother, who glanced aimlessly at the clock. "I don't have them." She said defiantly, though whom she was defying remained her secret.

If a skeleton could have blanched, Jack might have. "What?" he said.

"I don't have them." Ele crossed her arms. "I sold them."

"You WHAT?!"

Jack jumped up, shaking as much in fury as in panic. Ele shrank backwards against her chair, while Andrew watched in mild curiosity. "You sold them?"

"I sure as hell wasn't going to keep them!" Ele responded.

Jack stood motionless. He had never considered that Ele would no longer have the toys.

The others watched him nervously. The next move was his.

The skeleton lowered his hands onto the table. "Who," he said in a forcibly calm voice "has them now?"

Ele shrugged. "Some guy… Elfy-ouse Dir-gee I think."

"Aelphious Dirge? That guy's a frickin' MILLIONAIRE!" Andrew said excitedly.

"A millionaire?" Jack quizzed.

"He's practically showering in dough!"

"That seems to defeat the purpose of showering."

"Never mind. Let's just say he's rich."

Jack nodded in dim understanding. "Would he give the toys back if we asked?"

"Ha, I doubt it. He's the Midas of moviemaking! Have you even SEEN his latest film? "The Devil's Doctrine". I still can't go near a rosebush without shivering, and that movie came out in June!"

The three others looked at him blankly. Giving an exaggerated sigh to demonstrate his saintly patience, Andrew explained. "Dirge specializes in horror films. And they're good. His best one was "Snowball's Chance in Hell". Most people say "Whistling in the Grave" was better, but you must take into account…"

"Great, that's wonderful. Why do we care?" Ele asked, agitated.

Andrew spread his hands. "Well, maybe it's not so bad that he has them. I mean, he's practically the Horror Movie God, the toys are probably better off with him anyway."

Jack considered this for a moment. He imagined how easy it would be to just leave the toys with Dirge, go home and plan next year's Halloween. After all, he only had 359 days left and the planning had barely started.

Then he remembered the toys tearing through his library. Could he really trust this man with them?

"I can't. Do you know where this man lives?" Jack asked.

Ele shrugged. "I only contacted him through E-mail."

"You mailed him the toys, didn't you? What was the address?" Andrew pressed.

Ele struggled with her memory. "I don't remember."

"Oh, come on!"

"No, really, I can't!"

"Could you find it again?"

Ele looked at him. "No." she said finally.

"Excuse me?" Andrew narrowed his eyes and cupped his ear toward her. "Could you rephrase that for me, I don't understand."

"Hell. No." Ele hissed in his ear. "And I thought you thought Dirge could take care of the toys himself!"

"I do. But technically, those toys don't really belong to him."

"Yes they do."

"No, they don't. You FOUND them, and then SOLD them. You practically stole them. You could get arrested for that."

"No I can't."

"Yes you can."

"Oh yeah? I can see it now." Ele made a phone out of her hand and held it up to her ear. "Oh, yeah, 9-1-1? My sister stole a bunch of man-eating toys from a nine-foot tall skeleton and sold them to a millionaire who'll probably keep them safe under lock and key. She's obviously a dangerous felon and totally insane, you'd better get down here right away."

Jack's eye sockets furrowed. "I'm not nine feet tall."

"Whatever."

"Those toys aren't safe, Ele. Your brother is right, you did steal them, and the person who has them now may be in serious danger."

"He's a MILLIONAIRE, skull man. He has the money for a top-notch security system. Whatever those stuffed bastards can do they probably can't get through it."

Jack rubbed his skull and sighed. Obviously, they weren't going to convince this girl that she was wrong in selling the toys to Dirge. He turned. "Sally, perhaps we should-"

Sally was no longer sitting in the chair behind him.

* * *

The rag doll shuffled through the papers in Ele's room. Having seen early on that the conversation with Ele was going nowhere, Sally had taken the liberty of sneaking off and searching Ele's room. After a false start in Andrew's room, she finally found the poster-smeared room of the stubborn eighteen year old.

Sally first checked the papers on Ele's desk. Finding nothing but unintelligible math and a pitiable attempt at a report on the Romans, she turned to scrounging under the bed. Finding nothing there either, she stood up and looked around.

What could be seen of the wall was white. The rest of it was covered over by posters depicting the world and it's wonders; the Pyramids of Egypt, the Amazon, the Taj Mahal, Mount Everest and other such places were among the pictures. A plain bed with rumpled, unmade blankets and a woefully quashed bear lay pushed against the wall. A desk sporting a lamp, piled books, scattered pens and pencils stood not far from the head of the bed. In the wall across from the desk stood the closet, and beside the desk was a smell trashcan.

Sally made a beeline for the trashcan. She carefully uncrumpled the balls of paper inside it, tossing them aside as she searched for her prize.

"The Roman Empire fell through when it could no longer sustain itself through war-"

"Rome was caught in a vicious cycle which caused its downfall. War had given it an influx of slaves, loot, and soldier in search of glory-"

"The devaluing of money in Rome caused an unstable and eventual collapse in its economy-"

"Aelphious Dirge, 763 Tamberlin Ave, Caulkus, NY, 04777"

Sally had to stop herself from tossing the paper aside with the half finished reports. Quickly, she shoved the discarded papers back into the can, and, gripping the paper, quickly exited the room.

Sally almost immediately bumped into Ele, who stood glaring in the hallway.

"What were you doing in my room?"

"Nothing." Sally smiled nervously and edged pass the unfooled teen.

Andrew and Jack were still in the kitchen. "Did you get the address?" Andrew asked.

"How did you-"

"I figured you'd go looking for it."

Sally handed the paper to Jack. "This is the address."

Ele glowered from the hallway. Andrew ignored her and plucked the paper from Jack's fingers. He examined it for a few seconds, before handing it back to Jack. "It's not far from here, you could take the train."

"It would be quicker to go through the cemetery." Jack pointed out.

For the first time Andrew looked surprised. "Excuse me?"

"All cemeteries are connected to Halloweentown. All I have to do is slip through the crypt in this city and pop through the crypt that leads to the cemetery in Caulkus."

Andrew shook his head and broke out into a huge grin. "That is so cool."

Jack decided it would be easier for him to confront Dirge alone, and left quickly. Sally chose to wait at Ele's house. Andrew hung around for a while to ensure the two women wouldn't return to their earlier fight, but soon wandered off with his own intentions.

Sally and Ele were alone in the house.

* * *

All righty then, this is my chapter. I would adore some reviews, s'il vous plait. 


	6. In Which We Meet Aelphious Dirge

All right, here we go again!

**Disclaimer:** Listen, I don't own TNBC, the rights to Checkers, Sorry, Candyland, Chess, or Jumanji, nor do I own the rights to the books "Watership Down"(by Richard Adams), "In the Forests of the Night"(by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes), "Socrates in Love"(by Kyoichi Katayama), "Les Miserables"(by Victor Hugo) or "The Crow"(by James O'Barr) (Though I highly recommend them all) Nor do I own the rights to the movies "Princess Mononoke", "The Crow", "Rent" or "Moulin Rouge"(All also highly recommended). I DO own Ele, Andrew, Aelphious Dirge, Dirge's house (Well not really, but I imagined it and it has part of my dream yard in it) AND I own Mr. Lunge. I also own the city of Caulkus and Tamberlin Ave.

* * *

Ele was choking. 

Sally was too.

The tensity in the air was the culprit. Ten minutes had passed since Andrew had left the room, leaving both girls stationed on opposite sides of the room, blatantly ignoring each other while suspiciously checking each other to make sure the other female wasn't pulling a sneak attack.

Sally broke the silence. "He's not coming back is he?"

"Who? Andy?"

"Yes."

"Probably not, the jerk."

The silence resumed, followed by its dear friend, awkwardness. The two shifted in their seats, glanced at each other, stared mindlessly out the window, sighed, then started over from the beginning. Finally, Ele brought their thoughts to voice.

"I'm frickin' bored."

"Do you have a board game?" Sally suggested.

"No…" Ele rolled off the chair she was sitting on. "But Andy does."

The two trudged over to the boy's room and pushed open the door.

Oddly enough, Andrew's room was insanely neat. The bed, though devoid of any stuffed ball of fur, was neatly made with the navy blue blanket tucked efficiently under the mattress. A trunk stood at the end of the bed.

A monstrous bookcase leaned against the wall for support, it's charges set up in an orderly fashion. Top shelf, models, globes, breakables and action figures, shelf under that, horror, books to the left, VHS and DVD to the right. On the shelf under that, comic books, American genre to the right, Japanese to the left. The shelf under that held fantasy and adventure, and the shelf under that held "Recomendables", Andrew's favorites. This shelf in particular held few books or movies, though the few that were there were in impeccable condition. The Crow (both the movie and the comic) headed this collection, followed by Princess Mononoke, Watership Down, Socrates in Love, Rent, In The Forest Of the Night , Moulin Rouge, and Les Miserables. The shelves under that all contained the board games Sally and Ele had come to find.

Ele and Sally scanned through the stack of flat boxes.

"How about Jumanji?"

"How do you play?"

"Ach, I don't remember. What about chess?"

"I'm not very good at chess."

"Go? No, wait, where the hell'd he get that? Never mind, let's see… I'm about ten years too old for Candyland… Sorry?"

"Oh, it's all right."

"What?"

"You apologized."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did."

"It's the name of a GAME, Sally."

"Oh."

"I know, how about Checkers?"

"All right."

* * *

Caulkus Cemetery was extremely well kept, even in winter. It was a rather new graveyard, and had managed to keep itself from giving a formidable appearance. In fact, Jack could list near to a thousand improvements he could make in this cemetery to make it a respectable haunting ground, but now was not the time. 

Jack slipped through the amazingly friendly and welcoming gate with disgust, utterly appalled at the absolute lack of fear that came from the final resting place of the dead. When he wasn't so backed up in this year's Halloween preparations (What with the Christmas fiasco and all that) he'd have to gather together a haunting party and properly fix up the place.

Unlike the city, the streets were remarkably deserted. The streets were lined with chipper looking houses, which put forth cheerful looking lawns.

Jack quickly navigated through the main road and turned onto Tamberlin Ave. The chipper, cheerful houses didn't follow him down this street, instead being replaced with lengths of grass backed by forest.

His legs were becoming tired by the time he reached the mansion Dirge called home.

An eerie splendor protruded from the house. The hedges were sculpted into curlicues and unfathomable shapes. Where there were no hedges there were lawn ornaments, their styles ranging from the grotesque to the intriguing to the bizarre. A large statue of a seductive half-woman half-serpent reclined by what appeared to be a circle created of stacked stones. A marble Buddha meditated near a fountain whose heated water was stained red. Eerie shadows moved slowly beneath it. Shiva's stone head stared blankly at the sky, which was blocked by a tree containing seven stuffed crows The Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode out from behind a winter-wilted rosebush. Two seven-foot gargoyles guarded the door.

Jack marveled at the surroundings, mentally taking notes at the setup and style. He was so absorbed in his surroundings that he nearly bumped into the door.

Ele and Sally set the board up in the living room. Ele explained the rules as she set up the game.

"It's very simple." Ele began. "You'll play red, red moves first. I'll play black. You can only move on the black squares, so you go diagonally. We alternate turns. If your red piece is next to my black piece and the black space diagonally behind it is empty, you can jump it to capture that piece. Got it?"

"I think so."

"Then make your move."

* * *

Jack politely rang the doorbell. Unlike modern doorbells, this one was similar to Jack's, sans the spider. 

A loud, ominous booming echoed over the estate. Jack stepped back, and as the last of the booms faded away the door opened.

A short, tired little man stood at the door. He looked wearily up at Jack (Though he had to bend half his body to a near 90 degree angle in order to see the skeletons face) as though he were one who had seen many peculiar and questionable things and no longer cared enough to be surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for a Mr. Dirge. Is he here?"

"Mr. Dirge is busy. Go away."

"It is highly important that I see him."

"I doubt it."

"But it is!"

"I don't care."

"Sir, please, I need to-"

"If you don't leave know I'll have to call security."

"Oh, they won't be able to see me." Jack said cheerfully.

"And why is that?"

"They didn't see me come in did they?"

It suddenly dawned on the little man that he hadn't asked how this strange man managed to make it up to the doorstep in one piece.

"Now, listen here you, you-"

"Jack. Jack Skellington."

"I don't CARE who you are! You're not getting in this house!"

Jack sighed and decided this was going nowhere, thus Jack decisively stepped over the little man and into the mansion.

So far, Sally was winning.

True, it wasn't by much. Sally had only captured two pieces, but as that had been in the first few moves, Ele was already annoyed. She scooted a black piece foreword. Sally jumped and captured another piece. Ele glared.

The little man had latched himself to Jack's leg and was valiantly attempting to detain the skeleton. As he came up to Jack's leg, he was merely being towed along the floor like a child. Even so, he wasn't one to quit.

"SECURITY! SECURITY! WHERE THE HELL IS SECURITY?"

"It's around twelve now, isn't it? Perhaps they're at lunch."

"There should still be someone here! SECURITY! SECURITY!"

"Mr. Lunge?" A figure appeared at the top of the staircase.

"Mr. Dirge! Call security! I can't hold him!" Mr. Lunge cried.

"I gave security a lunch break. They're all off. You seem to be doing well yourself anyway."

"Mr. Dirge! On of these days you'll get yourself killed, you know that? Call the cops!"

"I don't believe that'll be necessary." Dirge descended the staircase, and walked, unafraid, toward Jack. "Will it?"

Dirge was a tall man. In fact, he could look Jack eye-to-socket. Black hair cascaded down his back, and he inspected Jack through blue eyes. He held himself tall and erect, as one who knew his greatness and wasn't humble enough to hide it. He was dressed in a fine gray suit and leaned against a lovely oak wood cane topped with an ostentatious gold orb.

Mr. Lunge detached himself from Jack's leg and attempted to regain his dignity. "Answer Mr. Dirge." He said.

"Mr. Dirge, I need to discuss something rather urgent with you. You see, there are some toys I believe you have-"

"Ah, yes!" Dirge's eyes glittered excitedly. "I just got them a bit ago. Would you like to see them?"

"I would like to take them home."

Dirge's features darkened slightly, though he retained his polite smile. "I'm sorry, Mr.…?"

"Skellington."

"Mr. Skellington. They are not for sale."

* * *

Ele was finally catching up with Sally. After loosing three more pieces, Ele had started capturing some of her own. They were now neck-and neck in the game. 

Ele jumped one of Sally's pieces. Sally jumped one of Ele's pieces. Ele jumped another piece. Sally glared at Ele. Ele glared at Sally. The game went on.

* * *

Jack blinked. "No, you see, those toys belong to me." 

"I'm afraid I don't follow." Dirge understood completely. He recognized this person now- the Santa Claus Imposter. Though he was rich he was not stupid- the toys probably DID belong to the skeleton- but the skeleton didn't have to know he knew that.

"Mr. Dirge, it is my business to scare people on Halloween. This year I accidentally botched Christmas, as you may have heard." Jack paused for a response. Dirge nodded for him to continue. "Those toys became more dangerous than was anticipated."

Dirge shrugged. "So? Your business may be to scare people on Halloween, but my business is to scare people every day. Those toys could be valuable to me."

Jack sighed. "Mr. Dirge-"

"Call me Aelphious, Jack."

"Aelphious… please, I need those toys back. I couldn't feel right about leaving them with you."

"Do you think I'm inadequate?" Dirge asked.

"No! No, it's just…"

"Mr. Skellington," Aelphious switched back to his more formal speech. "I assure you I will keep the toys safe. I request that you leave now."

* * *

Ele and Sally's game was coming to a close. Ele had continued playing an even game up until the last three moves. Ele had managed to capture two of Sally's kings, and that had put her in a happy mood. 

Sally moved a piece. "Where do you think Andy went?"

Ele was startled. It was the first thing said in a while. "I don't know."

"He left awhile ago. Do you think he's all right?"

"He can take care of himself. The worst that could happen is that he followed Jack to Halloweentown and stayed there."

"Would he really do that?"

"I wouldn't put it past him. He's kinda morbid, so if he did he's probably in Heaven right about now."

Ele succeeded in a double jump, which captured the last of Sally's pieces. "You can't do that!" Sally protested.

"Yes I can. It's in the rules."

"You never told ME that."

"You never asked."

* * *

"Well, you heard him. Leave!" Mr. Lunge turned Jack around and began pushing him toward the door. 

"But-" Jack turned again to face Dirge, and was immediately met with the sight of the Horror Film King swinging his cane at The Pumpkin King's skull.

* * *

I'm having a liiiiiittle to much fun beating up Jack in this fic. Oh well. Reviews are appreciated, as well as bandages, peroxide, gauze, and a number for the nearest taxi service in case I have to make a run for it. 


	7. In Which Quite a Bit Happens

Author's Note: For those who haven't seen the scroll bar, this is a long chapter. The longest I've ever written. I considered breaking it up, but I felt as though that would disrupt the flow a bit, so consider it my Christmas-Chanukah-Solstice-New Year's present to you all. I appreciate your reviews and your reading this story of mine, and I hope you enjoy it. Actually, my E-mail fianally gave me all your reviews since October. :P On another note, there are about three more chapters left, but I'm a little stuck on what should be done with the toys. I've considered returning them to the makers, releasing them into the forest and giving them to Lock Shock and Barrel for "safekeeping". Any ideas are appreciated.

Disclaimer: Don't own NMBC, do own Pablo, Pablo's Pub, Thomas Grady, Caulkus, Tamberlin Lane, Jekyll Ave, Ele, Andy, Dirge and Mr. Lunge. I do not own any of the songs that Ele plays, but I do enjoy them. Props for anyone who can name ALL THREE!!! (Well, mostly the third one. The first two are rather infamous.)

* * *

Jack lay unconscious on the pristine, polished floor. In under a week he had been blasted out of the sky, had his head knocked across the room by a baseball bat and been smashed in the head with a cane. Cracks had predictably made their way across the base of his skull, and Jack had finally received some unorthodox but well-deserved rest.

"Now what are you going to do, O Smart One?" Mr. Lunge asked, nudging Jack's still form with his toe.

"Don't be impertinent. Do you remember the parrot cage?"

"Balthazar's old home?"

"Yes that one. Do you think he'd fit inside?"

"Sir, _you_ can fit inside. He certainly can."

"Good. I want you to place him in there. Lock the cage securely."

Mr. Lunge groaned. "Sir, _why_…? Why are we keeping him here?"

Dirge smiled a little half smile. "Why do you think?"

Dirge turned and strode away, leaving Mr. Lunge alone with the collapsed skeleton.

* * *

Following the checkers game Ele locked herself in her room and proceeded to play various styles of music through the walls, with such lyrics as

"_I see a little silhouette-o of a man_

_Scaramouche! Scaramouche!_

_Will you do the Fandango?_

_Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening!"_

And

"_In the Master's chambers,_

_They gathered for their feast._

_They stab it with their steely knives_

_But they just can't kill the beast."_

As well as

"_The battle between Good and Evil_

_Goes back to the start._

_Adam and Eve and the Apple _

_Tore Eden apart."_

Sally, however, sat alone in the living room, staring blankly at the game board. Mechanically she picked up the plastic circles and dispensed them into their baggy. She then folded over the board and placed it into the box. She then lifted the box and toted it over to Andrew's room.

She knelt down to slip the game in with its fellows, when she heard the door open and close again behind her. She turned to see Andrew leaning against the door. He raised a hand and waved. "Hi."

"Hi." Sally stood up awkwardly. "Where did you go?"

Andrew shrugged. "You and Ele play a game?"

"Yes."

"Checkers?"

"Yes."

"She didn't tell you about double and triple jumps, did she?"

"How'd you know?"

"She does that with anyone and everyone, assuming they haven't played before. That's how she taught me. She hates losing, so she'll rig the game any way she can, but only if she can still keep it legal in her mind."

"But it's still cheating, isn't it?"

"Try telling her that."

Sally shook her head. She then sighed. "What do you think's taking Jack so long?"

Andrew shrugged. "He's probably just trying to talk Dirge into giving up the toys. He paid big money for them, so it's not likely he'll give them up without a fight."

"Should it really take this long?"

"Should take longer."

Andrew sighed and shook his head. He glanced out his window- the night was falling fast. "It's getting late. Maybe you should head back home."

"I told Jack I'd wait here." Sally replied.

Andrew looked at her for a moment. "I'll make up a bed on the couch."

* * *

Jack awoke to a pounding headache. He placed a skeletal hand over his face and sat up. A new pain exploded inside his skull, and Jack let out a moan. He lay back down and warily opened his eye sockets.

The first things he noticed were the bars. Long and thin, they arched high above him. A few bars encircled the cage every few feet.

Jack folded his hands over his chest and looked absently up at the top of the cage. _Now what? _He thought.

He lay there for a while, contemplating the situation. He supposed the thin bars were weak enough for him to bend, possibly even break. Dirge obviously hadn't given much thought to Jack's prison, or else he had sorely underestimated Jack's abilities as Pumpkin King.

Jack tentatively sat up again. He head was still throbbing, but he still managed to raise himself to his feet and look slowly at his surroundings.

There wasn't much to look at. A dim lamp glowed half-heartedly in the corner, and just barely illuminated the pale walls. To his left was a door, sturdy, yet unremarkable in appearance.

Hand over hand Jack used the bars to support himself as he turned to face the door. In fact, the door of his prison was also in this area. Four thick padlocks hung on the door, hung so that the loop slipped over a horizontal bar and around the bar that edged the door before it met with the lock. Jack tapped one of these and watched it swing with mild amusement.

The door opened and let in a shower of blindingly bright light. "Morning, Sleeping Beauty." A sarcastic voice greeted him.

"Good morning." Jack squinted at the diminutive form of Mr. Lunge.

Mr. Lunge sighed in disgust. He unceremoniously shoved a plate at Jack, then turned and marched through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

"Hmph." Jack pulled the plate toward him. It clanged helplessly against the bars, refusing to enter the cage. Jack tried this a few more times, then sighed and proceeded to maneuver the plate between the bars without dropping the food.

After a grand total of five minutes, he succeeded in bringing the plate into the cage with him. He settled down on the floor, crossed his legs, and inspected his meal.

For a prisoner, it seemed well put together, although he didn't have a clue what any of it was. He tentatively picked one of the morsels up. It was unexpectedly slimy, and slipped out of his fingers and landed with a splat back on his plate. He carefully picked it up again and nibbled its pale edge. It had a rather bland taste, but didn't seem harmful. Suddenly aware of his own hunger, Jack wolfed down the rest of the… the thing. He noticed that the yellow spot in the middle had a bit more flavor than the white surrounding it. He picked up another of these, and accidentally punctured it with his finger. Sucking the yellow slime away, he again observed the locks. He then grinned to himself and shook his head.

* * *

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Ele jumped, then, blinking back the bleariness in her eyes, promptly fell on top of her alarm clock. After pounding it against the floor a few times, it finally silenced. Sighing, she relaxed all her muscles and hung halfway over her bed. Forcing herself up, she rolled out of bed and headed toward the kitchen.

Sally was seated at the table, asleep. Ele peered into the living room. Andrew was asleep on the couch, entangled in the bed he had been making for Sally. Ele returned to the kitchen and attempted to silently make some toast. The instant the toast popped up, so did Sally.

"Wh-what? Is Jack back?"

"Nope." Ele replied, spreading the butter on her breakfast. "Toast?"

Sally accepted the burned bread and looked it over carefully.

Ele leaned over. "You eat it." She said secretively.

Sally ignored her remark and slowly ate the toast. When she finished Ele handed the rag doll another slice. And another. Sally refused the fourth piece, and the two assumed yet another awkward silence. Ele poured some coffee into her mug.

"So… Where are you from?" she asked, lamely attempting conversation.

"Halloween Town."

Ele snorted into her cup. "Sorry. _What_?"

"Halloween Town. Haven't you ever wondered where holidays come from?"

"No."

"Well, it's time you begun." Sally leaned back in her chair.

"Holiday's don't come from anywhere." Ele said seriously. "They're just days."

"No they're not! Sure, they are days, but they're holidays. Holy Days."

"I don't see what's so "holy" about Halloween. It's just a day for kids to dress up and mooch candy from their neighbors."

Sally looked as though she'd been slapped. "No, it's not. I mean, it looks like that now, but long ago, when Halloween just started, it wasn't. Do you know the full name of Halloween? 'All Hallow's Eve'. All HOLY eve. It was originally the New Year's Day. The whole costume thing is partially derived from confusing evil spirits."

"Aren't you and Jack 'evil spirits'?"

"No!" Sally said angrily.

"Sorry." Ele lifted her hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"It's all right." Sally sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. "I'm just… worried that's all."

Ele drained her cup and stared at it blandly. "Well, Dirge DID pay a lot of money for those toys. It' bound to take some time."

"Not this much time." Ele and Sally looked up to see Andy leaning groggily against the doorway. "Jack left around 4 PM yesterday, right?"

Sally and Ele nodded slowly in agreement.

"And it's, what, 10:30 now?"

The two girls nodded again.

"So he's been gone about 18 hours, right?"

"Where have you been?" Ele demanded.

"Not here. Listen, Jack would have been back by now, with or without the toys."

"Make your point, Andy.

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there, sheesh. What I'm saying is maybe Jack's being held against his will."

The two girls stared at him as though he had suddenly sprouted and extra head, three tongues and a third arm. Slowly, Ele began to snort. Then giggle. Soon she had fallen over onto the floor and was laughing hysterically. Sally and Andy observed this with mild fascination and horror. It was a good five minutes before Ele struggled to her feet gasping for air and replying. "Are you nuts?"

Andy shrugged. "Define nuts."

"What makes you think Bonebags is being 'held against his will'?"

"I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a bartender who runs a bar that Dirge's butler frequents."

* * *

In fact, since Jacks arrival Mr. Lunge had been to the bar three times. The first time it was closed, the second time he had had to leave to give Jack his food, and now he was back again, his short self plunked on that special stool exactly in the middle of the bar, where the bartender could hear what he was saying even if he went to the furthest end. And today Lunge had some pretty interesting things to say.

"As I was saying," he began as the bartender prepared his minute friend a Scotch, "This skeleton, this Jack fella, he was all locked up in the cage you know, and I'm thinking Mr. Dirge is all prepared to loose what's left of his steely marbles, when he tells me he plans on keeping this Mr. Skellington-"

"Skeleton." The bartender said mildly as he handed Lunge the beverage.

"Pardon?"

"You mean skeleton right?"

"No, Skellington."

"Skeleton."

"Skellington."

"Skeleton."

"Whatever. Any who, Mr. Dirge says he wants this Mr. Skellington- don't you even start! -to be part of his new movie! He says, he says, 'well, gee, how can I pass up such a chance like this? This guy claims to be the scariest of the scary, the most terrible of the terrifying, and you think I'm going to let him walk out my front door?' and he goes up to his study all whistling and happy like." Lunge took a swig of his drink, downing it all like the hardened alchaholic he was.

"And you're going to let him do this?" the bartender asked, refilling the glass.

"I don't have much of a choice do I?" Lunge stared glumly at the alchahol as it swirled into the mug. "I tried talking him out of the toys, but nooo, he has to get them. Before that I tried to talk him out of the rattlesnakes. And before THAT I was begging him not to go meet with the serial killer. You REMEMBER what happened with the serial killer right? And before that-"

"I understand, I understand." The bartender gestured for Lunge to end his reminiscing. He handed the butler the glass. "Here, drink up."

Lunge drank this glass slowly as the bartender dealt with other customers. When he returned Lunge had drained his glass and was starting to become inebriated. The bartender multiplying before him, Lunge continued his rant.

"He, he just doesn't listen! Not to REASON, most certainly, not to logic, the only things he'll listen to are weird, weird, strange creepy eerie things!"

The bartender patted him sympathetically on the back. Mentally he was storing the information which he would later pass on to Ricky, who would pass it on to Matthew, the reporter, who, unbeknownst to the bartender, would run the story by his son, Carl, who, being the gossip king he was, would eventually share the entire thing with he best friend, Andy Sprague. The whole process normally took no longer than two or three hours, as had been proven earlier when Andy first received the news of Jack's capture.

"You could try proving to him that the skeleton is dangerous." The bartender suggested.

"I could…" Lunge tried to force the idea through his drunken mind.

"You could let the skeleton out." The bartender pushed.

"I could…"

"And," pursued the bartender. "You could tell me all about it tomorrow."

"I could!" Lunge leapt up, which consisted mostly of him dropping behind the bar and out of the bartender's sight for a few moments.

When Lunge resurfaced, he crawled onto the bar so he could clap the bartender on the shoulder. "Thanks, Pablo, you're a real pal."

"Anytime." Pablo smiled.

* * *

Jack had been spending his alone time constructively. He had been meditating, thinking of Sally, dreaming up extra schemes for Halloween Town and other such activities.

He was currently picking the highest lock on the door.

Fortunately enough, his head wasn't the only part of him that could pop off. He had removed his pinky bones, which were amazingly thin compared to most bones. Jack balanced delicately on a horizontal bar, and this brought him just barely eye-level with the lock.

He wiggled his finger a few times, feeling out the different bits and pieces. It wasn't long before the lock popped, and hung precariously on the arched hook.

Jack carefully removed the lock and placed it in a coat pocket. He repeated this process for the remaining three locks without incident. He popped his finger back into place and eased the thin door open. Within seconds he was outside the room and back in the entryway. Forgetting the toys entirely, Jack dashed toward the door.

It was locked.

After jiggling the doorknob for a while, Jack slid to the floor with a groan. Clutching his skull with his hands, he tried to come up with a plan B.

It was at that moment a rather inebriated Mr. Lunge attempted to force his way through the door.

"Stupid… bloody… door!" he muttered, forcefully pushing against the door, which was currently blocked by Jack.

Jack scrambled out of the way as the drunken butler unlocked the door and stumbled in. Jack walked carefully around him and started out the door.

"Wait one moment!"

Out of habit, Jack stopped. "Yes?"

"You, sah, are a skellington." The butler said matter-of-factly.

"Yes, I suppose I am."

"But!" cried Mr. Lunge, as he thrust one finger into the air. "You are NOT a skeleton!"

"I'm not?" jack replied quizzically.

"Nope! Nope nope nopers!" the butler laughed as he sat on the floor. "And I'M going to let YOU out!"

"Well, that's very kind of you." Jack replied.

"Yes, yes it is." Said the butler, now looking rather sad and depressed on the floor.

An awkward silence fell between the two. "Well," said Jack nervously. "Goodnight then."

"'Night."

And with that, the Pumpkin King vanished into the darkness.

* * *

It would have been helpful to Sally, Ele and Andy if they had known that the events you have just read had taken place, for they were currently lost not far from Dirge's mansion. Andy was a boy of many talents, and following directions was not one of them.

"Where are we?" Ele asked irritably.

Andy looked about desperately for a sign. "We are right where we're standing."

"We're lost, aren't we?"

"I prefer to think of it as 'temporarily misplaced'."

"We're lost."

The despairing group of three stood shivering in the corner. "Perhaps we should ask for directions?" Sally suggested quietly.

"Where would we do that?"

Sally pointed a finger at a flickering neon sign across the road. Ele paled.

* * *

The pub wasn't smoky, or filled with hardcore bikers. In fact, it was as far away from your stereotypical pub as it could be. They only spared a mild glance at the underage children who entered that night, and went back to their conversations.

"You're a bit young aren't you?" the bartender said cheerfully.

He wasn't cleaning a glass. He was leaning against the counter, smiling pleasantly.

Pablo was a large man, in both height and waist. He showed clearly his Mexican heritage by his tan skin and black hair, but he didn't speak with a Spanish accent. He barely knew what "_Si, Senõrita_" meant. But he ran a bar, and he knew his hometown of Caulkus like the back of his hand.

"We're looking for the home of Aelphious Dirge." Ele said flatly, resolving to leave the pub as soon as possible.

Pablo raised one skinny, feminine eyebrow. "Now, why would you want to do that?"

"A friend of ours is there, we need to pick him up." Andy said quickly.

"Oh really? What's your friend like?" Pablo smiled, although he already figured he knew.

"He's a tall, bald guy in a striped tux. He's also pretty skinny, you might even say he's skelet- Ow!" He glared at Ele, who had elbowed him in an attempt to make him get to the point. "His name's Jack." Andy finished lamely.

"Oh, yes…" Pablo grinned again, showing a row of teeth that would have been perfect if it weren't for the left front tooth, which was slightly crooked. "Just follow the road that way," he jabbed his finger in the direction he meant. "Then turn onto Jekyll Ave," Jab. "And follow it until you reach Tamberlin Lane," Jab. "And follow that until you reach the really big mansion with the gates. You can't miss it."

Sally's exuberant thanks were cut short as Ele dragged them quickly towards the door. A man sitting at a booth stopped them briefly at the door. He pointed first to Sally, then to Ele, and waved his finger back and forth between them. "You two a couple?"

"_What?!_" Ele and Sally replied, Ele screeching in humiliation and Sally confused as to why the man seemed to think Ele was a man.

"Calm down, calm down." The man smiled placatingly. "You don't have to deny it, especially not here. Besides, it's by far more acceptable for women to swing that way then men anyway."

The conversation was never finished as Ele dragged her charges out from "Pablo's Pub" and ran in the direction of Jekyll Ave.

* * *

Thomas Grady was a cop. He wasn't a very good cop, but he wasn't a very bad cop either. He was just a cop who did what he could, when he could, until he could do it no longer.

Currently he held the cushy position of night watchman, specifically, he guarded the gates to Dirge's elaborate and bizarre mansion. For the most part he did it alone, without his partner's assistance. Many times he was told to leave by Dirge, who believed strongly that Mr. Lunge was sufficient protection against the stray assassin, rabid fan, or hopeful pilgrim who's deep and spiritual journey had led them to the Horror Movie Buddha.

Thomas sighed and ran his fingers through his light brown hair. He stared dreamily into space, allowing his mind to roam aimlessly about. He completely missed the teenage boy who snuck up a tree and over the stone wall. He never noticed the stitched and patched rag doll who was the next to go over the wall.

It was the final girl who lost her grip and fell into the lawn, and it was her muffled thump and slight cry that alerted him.

Thomas jumped and pulled his gun. He peered in through the gates to see a figure run into the shadows.

He wasted no time. Using a key Dirge had given him (for reasons he never quite understood) Thomas opened the lock and entered the garden.

In truth, the garden scared him more than anything. In the daytime it was a nervous oddity of stuffed creatures and molded plants.

In the dark it was like being lost in a nightmare.

Thomas kept his gun up, ready and nervous. He heard the wiggling of a doorknob, and a soft curse. Summing up all the courage of highly caffinated soda, he squeaked "Hey! You there!"

There was a great deal of scrambling on the porch. He caught sight of one figure as it darted to the side and took off after it.

It was like a scene from one of Dirge's movies. The cop chased the shadow through a maze of his worst fears. Red-eyed beasts leapt from the bushes, crows cackled and monsters roared. The dark and dangerous demons of the night stalked the shadows, and the goblins and gargoyles watched their prey with glimmering and deadly eyes.

The garden was silent and still but for two lonely figures running.

The end of the chase came with the wall. The figure half-heartedly moved to climb the wall. "Stop!" Thomas half shouted, half panted. "Stop in the name of… of… oh, forget it. Put your hands over your head and turn around.

Ele obeyed his command.

Thomas caught his breath and proceeded to cuff the girl. "All righty then. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford one one will be appointed to you…"

He never even saw the two figures who hesitated by the gate, then vanished into the night.


	8. In Which the Toys Have Their Revenge

Author's note: Two more to go, though I may end up putting the final chapter on hiatus, simply because I don't know what to do with it. Seriously, I would adore some ideas on that because I'm terrified of writing a letdown of an ending(This is going to be the first full-fledged fic I ever finished! I'd hate to ruin the ending horribly for you all!) So yeah, the chapter's short, it mostly focuses on Dirge, but there is some Jack and Sally in here, although it's a bit awkwardly written, since it wasn't really supposed to be here, but I figured you'd all like to know what happened to Jack.

* * *

Dirge looked blearily at his breakfast. He had been awakened late at night by Mr. Lunge, who had come in screaming about intruders, cops, and skellingtons. The result was a half asleep moviemaker who was trying his best to fight back his foggy mind and remember what the stiff on his plate was for.

He nibbled tentatively at a pancake, as he thought of his next movie. It would need a good, dark place to be filmed in, a place for Jack to come creeping slowly out of- or perhaps he would revive an old favorite and have him grab the heroine's leg and pull himself from beneath the grave. Dirge had no doubts about Jack's participation- he could see it in the skeleton's stance, in his movements, in his speech. Jack was a performer, and Dirge was offering him the greatest stage in the world.

Dirge forsook his breakfast and made a beeline for the room that held Jack. Lunge was sleeping elsewhere, and Dirge carefully avoided the other servants that swarmed the mansion. He halted at the door, and, for the sake of politeness, knocked quickly and opened the door. "May I come in?"

He was greeted by an empty cage. Dirge looked dumbly at the sight for a moment before the dread began to well up within him. The skeleton was gone. A great walking skeleton, the King of Fear and Halloween, was gone. Images filled the King of Horror's head. What if the Pumpkin King wanted revenge? Would he return for it? Would the seemingly kind and friendly Jack Skellington prove to be homicidal? Could a man truly die from fear?

Dirge could see it all in his mind's eye. The Demon of Light would emerge from the shadows, horrible and terrifying. He would take Dirge by surprise, just as he had done to the Pumpkin King only a night ago. Then he would descend into madness, propelled by haunts and spectors even his devious mind could not have created. Horrible beings of shadow and gore, coming to eat his heart and drain his soul. They would come from the shadows. They would come from the graves. They would come from the screams of the people he had entertained for so very, very long. Even if he came from this horror alive, he surely wouldn't come with his sanity.

All this ran through Dirge's mind as he stood, frozen, in terror of an empty cage. And then he remembered;

Some of the horrors were already in his house.

Trembling, Dirge shut the door. He took three deep breaths to calm himself and shake away his own fears. He then turned and ran through the entry room and up the stairs, racing toward the room where he had stored the demonic toys. Half of him prayed they were still there; half of him dreaded that they were.

He stopped at the door. He placed his hand on the knob. He felt his heart pounding in his head, begging, pleading, trying desperately to escape his body.

He opened the door.

* * *

Jack hadn't left Caulkis.

He had run as far as the graveyard, then stopped to catch his breath. No one had followed him. No one had seen him.

He leaned against a tombstone. A sweet, smiling lamb peered up at him from it's top. Jack groaned in humiliation. He would, he must, he HAD to fix this sugary… he didn't know what it was but in this state he would never call it a graveyard. It was hardly a cemetery.

"Jack?"

The skeleton looked up. Standing at the gates of the disgraceful graveyard was Sally. He opened his mouth to speak, but was nearly bowled over as Sally crashed into him.

"Sally?" The Pumpkin King gasped.

"What happened to you?!" Sally cried, still not releasing him from the ferocious hug she had bestowed upon him.

Jack carefully peeled her off and held her away from him. He then leaned his head against her shoulder and sighed. "It's… been a long night."

"It's hardly night anymore." Andy cut in.

The two looked up at him. The boy gestured at the lightening horizon behind him.

And the sun chased the happy shadows from the graves.

* * *

The toys were gone.

Shattered and splintered cages bent wearily in their places. The toys were nowhere to be seen. The windows were whole and unbroken. Dirge made the mistake of stepping in.

He was suddenly pushed forward, falling to his knees on the carpeted floor. The door was slammed shut, barred by a grinning bear with one eye.

Human stupidity is never so well shown as in a horror movie, and Dirge had taken a flying leap into one the instant he had bought the Halloween Christmas Toys.

The next thing he heard was laughter. Maniacal, twisted, evil laughter, that started as a giggle, then rose into a roar of power and hate. It came from the doll.

Her face was twisted and distorted, her whole form still sooty and gray from the crash. Her hair spurted in wild tangles from her head. Her eyes held no soul, they were lifeless and hard, just as all doll's eyes are. They stared, unblinking, unfeeling, soullessly at him, as the mouth, the stitches that had held the lips together now stretched and tight, zigzagging across the gaping hole that emitted such a hateful noise.

"Eh heh, eh hehhehehehHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEH!!"

She raised both arms.

The left one fell.

The cards fell with it.

Thin rectangular blades came raining down on hapless Horror-Film King. He leapt sideways, coming down hard on his sides. A horrible clanging like fallen knives shattered the air to his left. A few cards straightened their course and flew horizontally toward him, skimming over the Persian rug. Dirge quickly rolled to the right, too close to the man-eating bear. It latched forcefully to Dirge's arm, sinking filed and monsterous teeth deep into the skin and muscle. Dirge screamed in agony.

The bear released himself and stood protectively in front of the door. Dirge clutched his bleeding arm and stumbled back. His respite was brief, and from the cornor of his eye the doll, who had remained frozen, lowered her right arm.

The scooter and the hobby-horse charged.

Dirge was knocked to the floor, as the scooter ran over him. Again. And again. And again. Dirge struggled to his knees, but was slammed to the floor again by the hobby-horse. And the vengeful wheels of the scooter raced down his back. The wheels tore through his shirt and began to tear the skin away.

By now his blood was pooling on the carpet. The scooter raced to the edge of the room, ready to charge again. In this brief moment of reprieve, Dirge mustered his air and screamed.

"HELP! SOMEONE!!! HELP ME!!!"

No one came.

Fear gripped his heart. Fear laughed in his face. Fear was his friend no longer. No one was coming. What few guards he allowed to remain near the house were outside, and the servants had stopped answering cries for help, due to the number of film shoots and practices that had been ruined.

Dirge stared into the merciless wheels of the scooter. He covered his head and continued to scream. And he screamed, and he screamed, and the wheels tore his back, and the horse beat him down, and the doll laughed, and the bear licked the blood from his fangs.

And no one came, and no one came, and no one heard his screams.


	9. In Which Dirge is Rescued

Author's Note: Well, it's official, this story is going on hiatus until I figure out what do with the toys. I'm going to go back and rewrite chapters two and three, maybe four. Five too, because looking back on them, compared to chapters 6 and beyond, they kinda suck. I'm thinking I might cut out Lock, Shock and Barrel too, since I don't really have a plan for them anymore. I mean, they were going to tag along with Jack and Sally at first but then I realized, they'd just be deadweight, and looking back on chapter four now annoys me BECAUSE the three have no purpose anymore. Sigh. Oh well, let me know what you think, I'd love some reviews, some feedback, some suggestions, or hey, if you want to talk about your favorite kind of bologna, that works too.

* * *

Jack crouched in the branches of an unseasonably leafy shrubbery. Snow dazzled the leaves and the ground around him, but he ignored it. Instead his attention was focused on a second story window. He had determined this to be his point of entry awhile ago, now the only thing left to do was to actually get _in_ there.

He scanned the grounds one last time, running his plan through his head. True, he may have more than one shot at this, but he didn't want to run the risk of being captured again. Now all he wanted was to conclude this tiresome business, go home and plan this year's Halloween.

Satisfied that his next course of action would work, Jack bolted out from under cover and into the lawn. From above, he looked like a little black spider scurrying on a white silk scarf. He chose to move along on all fours, so that he could stay low to the ground.

He made it to a spindly little tree that looked vaguely like a sick piece of licorice with black toothpicks for arms. He scuttled up it with the ease of a monkey, then took a flying leap onto the head of a hideous stone troll. From there, he leapt nimbly from troll to gargoyle, then from gargoyle to a twirly set of rather unsteady looking stairs that began somewhere between five and six feet off the ground and ended at what looked like an alter for some horrendous and ghastly demon. Here, Jack stopped and squinted at the window that was his goal. It was hardly above him, and perhaps only about three feet away from him. The Pumpkin King shook his head. For a man who made stories about people in mortal danger, Dirge most certainly wasn't very keen on keeping himself out of it.

Jack leaned over slowly until he was leaning on the not-so-far-away wall. Supporting himself with one bony hand, he fumbled with the window until it finally opened. Jack breathed a sigh of relief. He had been afraid that the window would be locked, and having to break it would draw unwanted attention.

With all the difficulty it takes to fall off a log, the Master of Fright slipped through the open window and into the groomed and immaculate hall of Aelphious Dirge.

A red, plush carpet stretched down the hall. Small tables dotted the sides, bearing vases, small statues and in one case, a skull. Jack wandered aimlessly among these trinkets, searching for some sign of what he was looking for.

A piercing scream split the air.

"HELP! SOMEONE!! HELP ME!!!"

Clear from the other end of the hall, screams tore the silence. Immediately Jack turned on his heel and shot down in pursuit of the shrill cries of terror and pain. He found them behind the door two rooms from the end of the hall. He threw himself at the door, struggling to push it open. He heard squeals of protest from the other side. He threw all of his minute weight against the door, finally throwing it open and slamming the cycloptic bear against the wall.

The sight shocked even him.

Dirge lay on the floor. A stain slithered through the carpet that looked ominously like blood. Indeed, he was bleeding profusely. His nose was broken, his shirt was barely there and his back was torn and bleeding. His hands covered his head and a few of his fingers seemed to be bent the wrong way. One arm seemed to be scabbing over, but that may have just been the blood drying on his sleeve. This man seemed utterly broken. This man, who had terrified his way to this high status of living, was reduced to a pile of blood and meat and cloth at Jack's feet, all due to a bunch of playthings. This man, who had captured and imprisoned (no matter how briefly) the Demon of Light lay groveling on the floor, screaming for salvation.

His salvation came charging through the door, a gangly skeleton in a striped tuxedo, dampened by the melting snow but no less terrible in his entrance.

The Pumpkin King did not regard Dirge as a friend, but he did not regard him as an enemy. Now, Dirge was just another victim.

Another victim of the horrible, terrifying, shameful Christmas Jack had tried to create. Another victem of his mistake. And Jack always fixed his mistakes.

The Pumpkin King grabbed the stick of the hobbyhorse, which tried vainly to snap at Jack's arm. Jack swung the toy at the scooter, who had made another dash at Dirge's defenseless body. The scooter slammed into the wall and crumpled to the ground. Mr. Unlucky stood above the moviemaker, a guardian angel in the garb of a skeletal king.

The cards swirled around him, a deadly, bladed tornado. Jack swung the hobbyhorse around as cards became lodged in the wood. In the middle of this endeavor the bear shook itself out of it's shock and lunged at Jack's leg. The skeleton lifted his leg and brought it down firmly on the stuffed animals back, pinning it to the floor. The final cards slammed into the stick of the hobbyhorse, which gave its final scream of protest.

The doll stood quietly, glaring at the skeleton that tightly gripped her former comrade. The two faced each other, waiting for their counterpart to make the next move. After what seemed an eternity of waiting, the doll sank to her knees in submittance.

Without turning his back on the doll, Jack knelt by Dirge. The man's breathing was shallow. "Can you hear me?" Jack asked quietly, still watching the prostrate doll.

"Y…yes." Dirge whispered.

"I'm going to take the toys with me, understand?"

"T-take them. Take them… and go!"

"I need you to do one thing for me."

Dirge was silent.

"Are you listening?"

"Yes." Dirge gasped.

"I need you to drop the charges against Ele."

"Ele?"

"The girl arrested last night. Her name is Eleanor Sprague."

"I will."

Jack rose and proceeded toward the doll.

"W-wait."

Jack paused.

"P-please… Call an ambulance."

Then Dirge lost consciousness, as his thinning blood began to lose the fight in keeping him alive.

"I will."

* * *

The first servant Jack found was mopping the floor beneath the stairs. She had been working for Dirge for years now, and wasn't surprised at all to see a tall, toy-laden skeleton striding toward her.

He had a scooter slung precariously over one shoulder, and carefully held in that arm a hobby-horse pincushioned with fifty-four sharp looking cards. Tucked under the opposite arm was a stuffed bear and a rather weary looking doll.

"Can oi 'elp you?" The maid asked, leaning on her mop.

"Yes. Could you call an ambulance for Mr. Dirge? He's in rather bad condition."

"Oi could do tha'. Hoo, oi think ees abou' toime he got 'imself a bit banged up, moight teach 'im ter slow down a bit."

"Thank you." Jack left without another word, at last leaving behind Dirge, the house, and the last of the Christmas mess.

* * *

When the skinny, stick-like figure appeared at the gate, both Andy and Sally breathed a sigh of relief. Hours of anxious waiting had made both of them nervous, and the sight of the friendly skeleton was the cure for their nervousness.

"It went well?" Sally asked, carefully taking the doll and the bear, which snapped feebly at her arm, then decided it wasn't worth the effort.

"Yes, but Dirge was badly beaten."

"Will he be all right?"

"I don't know."

"Is he going to drop the charges on Ele?" Andy asked anxiously.

"He said he would. We will have to wait and see."


	10. In Which We Conclude

Author's Note: This is it! This is La Chapitre Finale! And, I want to thank everyone who's been reading this, you all make me feel happy inside. :D I just hope this is satisfactory to you all, but, if you don't like it, review and let me know, and I'll revise it. Or something. I'm feeling very unsure about it.

Now, I'm going to try and finish off "The Shadow Men", which is my Zelda fanfic. (Shameless Plug!) I believe it's older than this one and I've neglected it horribly.

* * *

The light was bright, and warm, and so wonderfully pure. He could see it, calling for him, wanting him to be there. He smiled, and tried to run toward it, but found he couldn't move. "What?" he whispered. "Why?"

The light was dying before him, dimming, slowly. "No, wait!" he cried, struggling to move. "Come back!" The light didn't listen. It drew into itself as the darkness rushed to fill the vacant space. "Please." He sobbed, unsure why. "No…" The light flickered, waved it seemed, and then, finally, winked out all together.

He was alone in the darkness.

* * *

It could be said that Dirge was superhuman. It could also be said that a man who lived and breathed brutal monsters had an inside connection when it came to avoiding death. It could be said Dirge had more blood than he had brains. It could be said that Dirge was just damn lucky.

Just about any of those could be true, because by some miracle, by some sheer force of will, Dirge survived. The hospital was close to his home, and also highly aware of the numerous amounts of accidents that occurred on his vast estate.

Dirge was comatose for exactly two days, twelve hours, thirty-seven minutes and two seconds. When he awoke, he was alone. Outside, it was dark, as dark as the blackness he had been in when the light left him behind. It was just as dark inside, and the only proof he had that he was still dreaming was the yellow light that snuck in through a window in the door.

Dirge did not celebrate his awakening. He did not attempt to leap up (he couldn't have if he tried- if he had, he would have ripped out the various tubes and needles stuck in him.), and he did not shriek with joy. Instead he sat quietly, staring blandly at the packet of blood slowly dripping into him. He thought quietly to himself. _What now? What do you do when you've lost your soul?_

He placed a hand on his thin stomach. It growled quietly.

* * *

The nurse sleeping a floor down was awoken by someone shouting and cursing. _Why doesn't he ever use the call button? _She thought.

* * *

Ele was livid.

By the time Dirge had arranged for her release, she had nearly been murdered by her roommate. It had started with a simple game of poker. Three of the other cellmates had invited her to join. Ele had replied eloquently.

"Hell no."

The thought running through her head was _I swear to God if I never touch a pack of cards again it'll be too soon._

"Oh?" one of the women said, raising her eyebrow. "You got a problem?"

"Maybe." Ele replied moodily, ignoring the angry and accusing glares of the other two women.

The first lady stood up. She was tall, stretching to a solid 6' 9". She had dark hair, and was less then thrilled with the teenager sharing her cell. She flung her cards at Ele, which caused the girl to give a small shriek of terror and shrink against the wall. The women laughed.

Ele slid off the cot where she had been sitting. She took two steps and was met by the tall woman. "Well, chickie?" the lady grinned, and blew her own foul breath into Ele's face.

Ele was not known for her patience. In a single fluid motion her hand stretched out and slapped the woman, snapping her head to the side. The woman stumbled back, and looked at Ele, first with shock then with rage.

Hard, broken nails flew at Ele's eyes. Screaming with fury, she grabbed her opponent's neck and attempted with all her might to strangle the criminal. The other two began to scream for help, pressing them selves to the wall opposite the fighting women.

The police were there quickly to break up the fight, but not before Ele had two black eyes and a bleeding cut on her left cheek, and the other woman had two reddening marks around her neck.

She gasped for breath. "You're going to regret that chickie."

Ele opened her mouth to make a retort, but was stopped by the burly officer holding her shirt collar. "Eleanor Sprague?" Ele nodded. "Charges have been dropped. You're free to go."

"I'll get you, chickie." The woman hissed. "I'll get out and I'll get you."

Waiting for Ele outside the station was none other than Mr. Lunge. Short, rumpled and obviously annoyed, he told her to get into the car he had waiting. Tired, angry, and no less annoyed than Lunge, Ele obeyed. Mr. Lunge then placed himself behind the wheel and began to drive. The first half hour of countryside passed in silence. It was Ele who spoke first.

"Where are we going?"

Mr. Lunge cast a sideways glance at the battered teen. "Home."

"Home?"

"Your home."

"How do you know where-"

"I assume your address hasn't changed since you sent the toys?"

"Well, no… How do you-"

"Surely you didn't think Mr. Dirge wouldn't find out who was arrested on his own property?"

Ele was silent. She supposed it made sense. But that didn't mean she had to like it. Just knowing that people like Dirge and Lunge knew where she lived was enough to make her uneasy.

"How's your face?"

"_What?_"

"Your face. Is it still bleeding?"

Ele's hand carefully brushed her cheek. Splots of loose blood had dried there, and the cut itself had scabbed over. "No." she replied.

"Hmm." Lunge angled the rear-view mirror and briefly viewed the cut on Ele's face. "You're going to want to clean that."

"Yeah." Ele muttered, and gazed out the window.

The drive lasted for most of the day, interrupted by a stop for some band-aids and disinfectant and another for doughnuts. Conversation was killed by the plain dislike of each other, and it was with great relief the two of them arrived outside Ele's apartment building.

Ele threw a quick thanks over her shoulder as she scrambled to open the door. She was halfway out when Lunge grabbed her shoulder. "Wait," he said.

Ele stopped. "Listen. Tell the Skellington that Mr. Dirge has no intention of hunting him out, and he doesn't want any more trouble from him. Or from you." He glared at her for a moment. "Ever."

"Yeah, sure." Ele stumbled out of the door. After an awkward pause, she said "Happy New Year." And slammed the door shut.

Lunge drove off without a reply. Ele waited outside for a moment, then entered the building.

* * *

"Happy New Year!" Andy cried, grinning broadly.

"It's not New Year anymore, idiot!" Ele snapped.

"It's only the fourth, Ele."

"What _is_ 'New Year'?" Jack asked curiously.

Ele rolled her eyes. Andy stifled a laugh. "It is what it's called."

"All right…" Jack said, fascinated. "But what is it _about_? How do you celebrate it? Is it a large holiday? What-"

Sally touched his arm. "Jack…"

Jack sighed. "Sorry Sally."

The group was quiet. Ele looked around. Her parents weren't due back until the seventh, and she had only given the police station her home number. She prayed that they hadn't found out about her arrest yet. As if he had read her thoughts, Andy threw an arm around Ele's shoulders. "How about," he said, pausing slyly. "We not tell them?"

Ele said nothing.

Sally shook her head. "I suppose we should be getting back then."

Jack slapped his forehead, his bony fingers making an unnerving clacking sound against it. "We should! My God, there's so much to do! We're so far behind!" He turned to Ele and Andy. "Thank you for your help. I am in your debt."

Ele opened her mouth, but Andy beat her to it. "Don't worry about it." The siblings glared at each other, and whatever Ele was going to say was lost there.

Instead, Ele said, "What happened to the toys?"

"I took them back to Halloweentown. I believe I found a… fitting place for them."

"Are you sure it was a good idea?" Sally asked, worried.

"Of course!" Jack said confidently.

* * *

In Halloweentown, Lock, Shock and Barrel had found something interesting outside their tree house. A sack, filled with… something. They hadn't opened it yet. They had spent the last hour poking it with sticks, giggling as whatever was inside wiggled with discomfort.

Now, this form of entertainment was becoming boring.

"Well, open it!" Barrel said.

"How about you open it?" Lock replied.

"I'll open it." Shock rolled her eyes and clambered up the sack and inspected the mouth of the sack, which was perched at the top like a floppy ponytail. Turning, she slid down the side. "I'm no good with knots. You open it."

"Chicken!" Shock cried, wiggling his elbows. Barrel followed suite.

"Am not!" Shock punched her brother in the shoulder.

"Hey!" Lock leapt atop of Shock and the two began to wrestle.

RIII-IIIP.

The three froze. Simultaneously they raised their eyes to the sack.

A single eye was watching them from the black hole.

They stared at each other, the three children and the single eye.

The thing in the sack giggled.

So did Lock, Shock and Barrel.

The giggling went on for hours, and when it ended, it was finally dark.

The children never found the note left by Jack. It read, _Care for some toys?_


End file.
